Lawyers, guns and liars: Stephen Harper’s stunning contempt for the law

When governments get long in the tooth, they end up hauling a lot of dead wood they’d be better off without. In the case of the Harper government, the problem seems to be partly solving itself: 30 current MPs, nearly 20 per cent of the government caucus, aren’t coming back in the fall.

So, yeah — Alexander’s a mess. In fairness, though, his sin may be limited to being too blunt in expressing the Tories’ thinking on the issue. The niqab, according to a Conservative party fundraising email, is “not the way we do things here.” The niqab means concealment, separation from community — and we’re all about openness, right?

Harper’s people should be more careful about how they describe a garment that could serve as a metaphor for his approach to politics. The prime minister’s entire career has been built on concealment and control. Debates last exactly as long as he wants them to. Inconvenient questions are ignored, or are diverted into the verbal swamp of Paul Calandra. “Not how we do things here” — it would be a pretty good slogan for the Tory re-election campaign.

In April 2012, Parliament passed the law to end the long-gun registry — but at the time there was still an active access request linked to the registry records. Then-Public Safety minister Vic Toews promised not to destroy those records.

This isn’t one of those times when we can lay the problem entirely at Harper’s feet. Every single MP who stood up and voted for this travesty stands accused of colluding in the prime minister’s contempt for the rule of law. They should be ashamed. Maybe some of them are.

An affidavit filed by the Information Commissioner’s office suggests just how good Mr. Toews’ word actually was. It includes emails that detail significant pressure on registry officials to destroy the information and destroy it quickly. Pierre Perron of the RCMP’s firearms programs wrote: “Just for the record, (the) minister’s office is putting a lot of pressure on me to destroy the records sooner.” Other officials referred to “pressure from senior RCMP to move up the delete date.” And another Canadian Firearms Program manager wrote: “Between you and me, someone will owe us lots of drinks at (the Prime Minister’s Office) if they want this to happen by end of August.”

When asked about this in the House of Commons, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney displayed his shallow grasp of civics. “We reject the claim,” he said, “that the RCMP did anything wrong by following the will of Parliament to destroy data from the long-gun registry.”

But the “will of Parliament” and the rule of law are not the same thing. Parliament passes laws — but it also has to obey them. Surely a minister of the Crown should know that much. In fact, Blaney does — which is why his government moved to rig the game.

It’s always risky to describe an act of the Harper government as plumbing a “new low” (there always seems to be a newer low) but when it slipped a retroactive amendment into its budget bill to exempt the long-gun registry from Access to Information Act … retroactively, to 2011, before the registry bill was passed … even the steeliest of Hill cynics was amazed.

Even if an OPP investigation finds the RCMP broke the law, that time-travelling amendment will change the law retroactively so that the RCMP cannot be found guilty of anything — even if they are. The government claims its critics are nitpicking, that the registry was doomed anyway and it hardly matters how it ended. But the gun registry isn’t the issue any longer.

The issue is whether Canadians are willing to live with a government that sees nothing wrong with retroactively amending a law to suit its own short-term political interests. If the Harper Conservatives get away with this, what’s to stop some future government (of any party stripe) from backdating amendments to, for instance, clear itself of violations of election law? If you’ve got a get-out-of-jail-free card you can use more than once, will any prime minister be able to resist the temptation to bend the rules — to make one law for those who govern, another for the governed?

And this isn’t one of those times when we can lay the problem entirely at Harper’s feet. Every single MP who stood up and voted for this travesty stands accused of colluding in the prime minister’s contempt for the rule of law. They should be ashamed. Maybe some of them are. Maybe some of them are whining in private, saying that it was a budget bill and they had no choice.

But they did. They could have stood together in caucus and told the PM to take it out. They could have threatened him with open revolt in the Commons. This close to an election, with their nominations (or pensions) secured, what could Harper do to them? Deny them a cabinet post he may not be in a position to offer anyway?

Instead, they did what they always do — they rolled over. This October, Canadians need to send them a message: that’s not the way we do things around here.

Steve Sullivan has been advocating for victims for almost 20 years, having served as the former president of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and as the first federal ombudsman for victims of crime. He has testified before numerous parliamentary committees on victims’ rights, justice reform and public safety issues and has conducted training for provincial and federal victim services. He is currently the executive director of Ottawa Victim Services and a part-time professor at Algonquin College. His views are his own and do not represent any agency with which he is associated.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

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Steve Sullivan is the Executive Director of Ottawa Victim Services and a Part-Time Professor at Algonquin College in the Victimology Graduate Certificate Program. He has been advocating for victims for almost 20 years, having served as the former President of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and as the first Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. He has testified before numerous Parliamentary Committees on victims' rights, justice reform and public safety issues and has conducted training for provincial and federal victim services.